Gadgetory

hey Siri good morning your house is waking up it might need some coffee no apple's homekit platform has been lagging behind in the smart home for some time now it doesn't have as many product partners as Amazon's Alexa or Google alphabets nest and it's not really easy to set up it doesn't even have its own dedicated app that was until Apple announced its latest mobile software and a new beta app for home kit called home the official version of iOS 10 and home won't be available until the fall but we decided to take a look at the beta to see what we liked and didn't like here's what we like it's pretty easy to use but still customizable quick press an accessory to turn it on or off or long press it for more options setting up scenes is also really simple and intuitive so with a single command you can control multiple devices and if you setup an Apple TV or an iPad as a hub you have access to some advanced automation options like geofencing and triggers but there are some issues too for one thing it's still really hard to set up there's no actual infrastructure built into the app right now at least in beta form that lets you set up new devices I would really love to see a drop-down menu or something simple that lists specific products so you know how to pair them it's also a little tricky in terms of usability as of today there's no back button on the pages so you really just have to press somewhere within the current screen to get back to the previous page and there's no way to see all of your devices in one space that's something that we'd love to see in the final version it's still in beta so it's definitely early to make a judgment on this software we see potential here so hopefully the final version of this app will give homekit a stronger position in the smart home hey Siri goodnight nighty night bye your house sleep tight